Friday

Aug 10, 2018 at 4:37 AMAug 12, 2018 at 12:03 PM

It’s difficult to believe it’s the 21st century and a concept as archaic as gay-conversion camps still exists. Even more startling, our current vice president has long supported them. That’s why rising filmmaker Desiree Akhavan hopes to do a little conversion of her own with “The Miseducation of Cameron Post,” her prize-winning Sundance gem about the attempted rewiring of a 16-year-old girl’s sexual identity.

Drawing inspiration from Emily Danforth’s 1993-set novel, Akhavan unspools a convincing case that the only thing these pray-the-gay-away facilities accomplish is teaching ostracized youngsters how to further hate themselves. What’s the good in that? And while we’re at it, what gives theses Bible-quoting converters the right to tell other people how to live their lives and betray what they feel? Akhavan and her precocious star, Chloë Grace Moretz, subtly, but powerfully take these de-facto prisons to task with liberal uses of humor and compassion. Even better, they refuse to condemn the “believers,” treating them with dignity and respect, albeit while slyly skewering the error of their ways.

Some have been critical of Akhavan and her co-writer, Cecilia Frugiuele, for being too wishy-washy. And it’s true that their approach is a tad mainstream, but isn’t that the way to go when you want to change minds and enlighten detractors? Ditto for Moretz in the title role. Her Cammy is overtly wholesome and likable, seemingly devoid of the rage and anger you’d expect from a teenage girl forced against her will into what is essentially a nunnery advocating the pure and chaste.

You go with her, though, as she capably displays the confusion of being tossed into an environment far removed from the life she lived as an orphan raised by her religious aunt. Other than her experimental dalliances with her best friend, Coley (Quinn Shephard), and an occasional toke on a pot pipe, Cammy is a good kid. She even attends Bible school. But when she’s caught by her boyfriend making out with Coley in the backseat of his car on prom night, it’s as if she’s committed murder and must be sent directly to corrections.

The irony is that the sex and recalcitrance becomes even more pronounced after an endless array of therapy sessions and workouts done in unison with the camp’s vast collection of “blessercize” tapes, best described as Jane Fonda on Jesus juice. And speaking of Jane Fonda, that just happens to be the name of Cammy’s new, dreadlocked pal, played with spirited sass by “American Honey’s” Sasha Lane. What bonds them, and their other close bud, Adam Red Eagle (a very good Forrest Goodluck), is their realization that what’s being dumped on them is a pile of twisted B.S. But they stay because, as they say, living at the heavily wooded and picturesque God’s Promise is better than dwelling on the streets and turning tricks for money.

The fallacy of these camps is exemplified by Cammy’s roomie, Erin (Emily Skeggs), a diehard Minnesota Vikings fan struggling to convince herself she doesn’t prefer sleeping with girls. Like the others, she’s living a lie, wasting her time zeroing in on the “causes” of her same-sex attractions, and then jotting them down on a drawing of an iceberg − the underwater part representative of the “disciple’s” submerged sins, like boys taking part in feminine activities, an attraction to sports not gender neutral and crushing on your soccer coach.

It’s a form of therapy, the camp’s leaders, Dr. Lydia Marsh (“Fifty Shades” veteran Jennifer Ehle effectively dishing a softer sort of sadism) and her “recovered” brother, Reverend Rick (smarmy John Gallagher Jr.), have fully bought into, along with a policy of no music other than Christian rock. The latter leads to one of the best scenes when Cammy and a handful of the other disciples daringly change the radio dial and start singing along to the catchy “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes. It’s a burst of rebellious emotion that doesn’t sit well with Lydia when she walks in on the hedonistic display. No wonder Adam jokes that she’s “like having your own Disney villain.”

Ehle is so good portraying the resident party pooper you can’t help recalling Nurse Ratched from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.” And like that classic film, God’s Promise is very much an insane asylum; only the lunacy rests with the siblings running the place, not the inmates. The guilt and despair the pair foist upon the teens eventually backfires in an act of violence involving one of the most volatile of the kids, played nicely by Owen Campbell. The event takes place off-screen, but the blood left behind sufficiently makes the point. It’s a disturbing moment, but it feels a bit out of character in a film undeserving of such a sharp, dramatic twist. It’s Akhavan’s only misstep, and it’s a big one. She redeems herself with a kicker ending perfectly evoking the need for every person to be allowed to be who they want to be. It’s nothing deep or profound, but it sure is liberating.